Runpod logo Vast.ai logo

Runpod vs Vast.ai

RunPod stands out for its ease of use, affordable pricing and scalable infrastructure, while Vast.ai's strength lies in its marketplace model and auction-based pricing.

Jump to: What's good Pricing Services Company details Alternatives

What's good about...

Runpod logo Runpod

  • Deploy affordable GPUs in under a minute
  • Scale across 30+ regions worldwide
  • Flexible billing: pay by the second, no commitments
  • Built-in deployments, autoscaling & monitoring

Vast.ai logo Vast.ai

  • Large pool of over 20,000 GPUs
  • Over 68 GPU types across 40+ data centers
  • Enterprise-grade security with SOC2 certification
  • Pre-built templates including PyTorch, CUDA, and TensorFlow

Price comparison

How do Runpod's prices compare against Vast.ai?

VM Small

Closest config to 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM.
Runpod Runpod
$43.20 / mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
Vast.ai Vast.ai
--

VM Medium

Closest config to 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM.
Runpod Runpod
$86.40 / mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
Vast.ai Vast.ai
--

VM Large

Closest config to 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (dedicated preferred).
Runpod Runpod
$172.80 / mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (Compute-Optimized)
Vast.ai Vast.ai
--

Block Storage

Closest config to 100+ GB SSD, 3,000+ IOPS, 100+ MB/s throughput, no snapshots.
Runpod Runpod
$10.00 / mo 100 GB
Vast.ai Vast.ai
--

Free egress allowance

Runpod Runpod
Free and unlimited
Vast.ai Vast.ai
--

1 TB of egress beyond allowance

Runpod Runpod
Free and unlimited
Vast.ai Vast.ai
--

Vast.ai logo Vast.ai Pricing Details

Vast.ai operates as a global marketplace where pricing is billed per second and broken into three components:

  1. Active rental cost for the GPU, charged only when an instance is running.

  2. Storage cost for allocated disk space, which applies as long as the instance exists (even when stopped).

  3. Bandwidth costs for data transfer.

GPU Fleet Overview

Starting Price

Runpod Runpod
$0.16/hr
Vast.ai Vast.ai
$0.02/hr

Billing Options

Runpod Runpod
On-DemandSpotReserved (12mo)Reserved (6mo)Reserved (3mo)
Vast.ai Vast.ai
On-DemandSpotReserved (6mo)

Available Models

Runpod offers 27 GPU models, while Vast.ai offers 56.

Runpod Runpod
H100(47) A100(36) H200(28) L40S(20) B200(23) RTX Pro 6000(24) V100(2) RTX A6000(15) L4(12) RTX 4090(5)
View all 27 GPUs
Vast.ai Vast.ai
H100(35) A100(94) H200(84) B200(16) RTX Pro 6000(103) V100(12) RTX A6000(4) L4(16) RTX 4090(356) RTX 5090(286)
View all 56 GPUs

Heads up: We do our best to keep these prices accurate. However, cloud costs may fluctuate based on region, usage, and other factors not listed here. These are estimates based on common setups and are for informational purposes only. Always verify current rates with the provider before provisioning.

Which services do they offer

Here are some managed services that Runpod and Vast.ai offer:

Service Runpod Vast.ai
Block Storage
GPU-powered Servers
Managed Containers
Python Notebooks
Virtual Private Server (VPS)

Company details

Website
Runpod Runpod
www.runpod.io
Vast.ai Vast.ai
vast.ai
Headquarters
Runpod Runpod
United States of America
Vast.ai Vast.ai
United States of America
Founded
Runpod Runpod
2022
Vast.ai Vast.ai
2018
Data Center Locations
Runpod Runpod
24
Vast.ai Vast.ai
--
Example Customers
Runpod Runpod
Zillow, CivitAI, Wix, OpenAI, Perplexity, Cursor
Vast.ai Vast.ai
IBM, Brave, Speechify, Cognition, Bosch

Alternatives to consider

Compare Runpod and Vast.ai against other cloud providers.

View all comparisons

Our data for Runpod was last updated on June 7, 2026, and for Vast.ai on June 7, 2026.